All Our Patent Are Belong To You • Hacker News Board

Re: All Our Patent Are Belong To You

#31

Post by oddevan » Thu, Jun 12, 2014, 5:21 PM UTC

McGlockenshire wrote: post #7

smackfu wrote: post #2

"Tesla will not initiate patent lawsuits against anyone who, in good faith, wants to use our technology." What exactly does that little "in good faith" clause mean in there?

Until clarified, it kind of reads like "independently came up with the same idea, but did not research patents or reach out to us for licensing first."

I feel like (again, until clarified) it's more broad than that. "Wants to use our technology" certainly implies to me that I can seek out Tesla's patent applications and attempt to build using them.

Re: All Our Patent Are Belong To You

#32

Post by JoshTriplett » Thu, Jun 12, 2014, 5:21 PM UTC

hengheng wrote: post #3

> Tesla will not initiate patent lawsuits against anyone who, in good faith, wants to use our technology. I'm not familiar with US legislation, but from my perspective this is just Musk on his soap-box making a statement. It's not something I can rely on while building a business that possibly (!) infringes one of Tesla's patents. They may retract their statement and reconsider at any time, especially when times get…

Hopefully they'll issue a more formal statement, but even if they don't, this is grounds for estoppel.

Beyond that, anyone who wants something signed and in writing could likely drop a note to Tesla for it when doing their due diligence.

Re: All Our Patent Are Belong To You

#33

Post by colanderman » Thu, Jun 12, 2014, 5:21 PM UTC

FFS, change the title back to what it was submitted with! "All Our Patent Are Belong To You" makes no sense out of context. At least the original title said something about Tesla Motors.

Re: All Our Patent Are Belong To You

#34

Post by smoyer » Thu, Jun 12, 2014, 5:24 PM UTC

hengheng wrote: post #3

> Tesla will not initiate patent lawsuits against anyone who, in good faith, wants to use our technology. I'm not familiar with US legislation, but from my perspective this is just Musk on his soap-box making a statement. It's not something I can rely on while building a business that possibly (!) infringes one of Tesla's patents. They may retract their statement and reconsider at any time, especially when times get…

If Musk is smart (and serious about his belief in OSS), he'll keep the patents as a defensive tool and provide $0 perpetual licenses to the patents to anyone who asks.

Re: All Our Patent Are Belong To You

#35

Post by dragonwriter » Thu, Jun 12, 2014, 5:24 PM UTC

hengheng wrote: post #3

> Tesla will not initiate patent lawsuits against anyone who, in good faith, wants to use our technology. I'm not familiar with US legislation, but from my perspective this is just Musk on his soap-box making a statement. It's not something I can rely on while building a business that possibly (!) infringes one of Tesla's patents. They may retract their statement and reconsider at any time, especially when times get…

> I'm not familiar with US legislation, but from my perspective this is just Musk on his soap-box making a statement. It's not something I can rely on while building a business that possibly (!) infringes one of Tesla's patents. They may retract their statement and reconsider at any time, especially when times get tough.

The question is whether its a specific enough statement as to reasonably induce reliance, and whether promissory estoppel would apply. It seems to me (and I'm not an expert) like it may be close enough as to seriously threaten Tesla's ability to successfully prosecute suits, and vague enough that anyone else would still be leery about using anything Tesla has patented.

Re: All Our Patent Are Belong To You

#36

Post by beltex » Thu, Jun 12, 2014, 5:26 PM UTC

Fun aside: Tesla patent wall in question via Steve Jurvetson

https://www.flickr.com/photos/jurvetson/14405402742/

Re: All Our Patent Are Belong To You

#37

Post by oddevan » Thu, Jun 12, 2014, 5:26 PM UTC

graeham wrote: post #28

Sounds to me like the "in good faith" clause is to retain the patents for a defense should someone try to come after Telsa for infringing. Quite an interesting business move and pretty unprecedented as far as I know, at least for a non-software company. Presumably he is hoping that this will encourage improvement to infrastructure. He is also probably thinking he can build higher quality cars and cheaper than others,…

That is certainly the most plausible reading of that phrase, but it still seems like it could be put into a licence pretty easily, along the lines of "User of these patents hereby relinquishes all claims of infringement against Tesla Motors for any patents the user may own or license".

Re: All Our Patent Are Belong To You

#38

Post by fuddle » Thu, Jun 12, 2014, 5:26 PM UTC

colanderman wrote: post #33

FFS, change the title back to what it was submitted with! "All Our Patent Are Belong To You" makes no sense out of context. At least the original title said something about Tesla Motors.

Mr Musk, I expected better grammar from you.

Re: All Our Patent Are Belong To You

#39

Post by mwsherman » Thu, Jun 12, 2014, 5:27 PM UTC

There is no legal covenant here. I imagine Tesla’s definition of “good faith” is “we evaluate on a case by case basis”.

Which amounts to “if we like you” and “we reserve the right”. If they wanted these patents to be open source, they would license them explicitly.

Re: All Our Patent Are Belong To You

#40

Post by sdpurtill » Thu, Jun 12, 2014, 5:27 PM UTC

bthomas wrote: post #16

He makes an interesting implicit argument - that it's okay to use patents to block established players from innovating with you, but not to block new startups from challenging you.

He's not saying that. He's arguing that, were Tesla not to take the patents, there was a good chance one of the established auto makers would have taken them. This would have been the problem, as the entrenched players probably would have used the patents to stifle innovation in order to maintain dominance.